The Internet is having a profound affect on every aspect of personal and business life. In the beginning, computers were standalone assets that did not communicate with each other very effectively. Now, the Internet and email support tremendous volumes of messages and downloads. Such makes it possible to decentralize where the actual processing for a particular job needs to be done.
Desktop computers developed such that operating systems are used to host and execute application programs. Spreadsheet, presentation, word-processing, graphics programs, and others were developed that could be hosted by the operating system. Each of these programs often costs a hundred dollars or more, and each user must pay no matter how little the application program is needed or used. Some bundling of common applications has occurred in the market. For example, Microsoft Corporation bundles WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, etc., in their MICROSOFT OFFICE package.
Web browsers today are commonly provided for free. Netscape COMMUNICATOR and Microsoft INTERNET EXPLORER are the two major competing browsers, but INTERNET EXPLORER seems to clearly dominate. It seems likely that the Microsoft WINDOWS operating system will evolve to fully integrate browser functions. In fact now, INTERNET EXPLORER cannot be deleted from WINDOWS systems.
According to Adobe Systems (San Jose, Calif.), Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world. PDF is a universal file format that preserves the fonts, images, graphics, and layout of any source document, regardless of the application and platform that was used to create it. Adobe® PDF files are compact and complete, and can be shared, viewed, and printed by anyone with the free ADOBE READER® software or other third party PDF readers. To date, more than 500 million copies of the READER software have been distributed. You can convert any document that you can print to Adobe PDF using ADOBE ACROBAT® software products, enabling business, engineering, and creative professionals to create, distribute, and exchange secure and reliable ADOBE PDF documents. For more information, see the ADOBE ACROBAT product family. PDF is the standard format for the electronic submission of drug approvals to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and for electronic case filing in U.S. Federal courts. The United Kingdom and Germany use PDF for electronic document exchange. The International Standards Organization ISO's PDF/X specification is the standard file format used for the digital distribution of advertisements for publication.
LaTeX is a typesetting system that formats text for producing attractive, professional-looking documents. LaTeX is enormously powerful and ubiquitous, but LaTeX input resembles computer programmer source code. So, it is not recommended for the inexperienced. A lot of useful information about Tex, LaTex, and PDFTex is available on the Internet at www.tug.org, the website of the TeX Users Group.
LaTeX has features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of papers on mathematics. LaTeX is a “macro package” for use with TeX, a sophisticated typesetting program invented by Donald Knuth in about 1978. LaTeX adds a set of commands to simplify the use of TeX. The LaTeX syntax may not seem very straightforward, but its ability to typeset math and foreign characters makes it ideal to use for technical papers.
During the 1980's, one of the major changes that occurred in computing was the development of highly versatile output devices. Unlike earlier impact printers, today's high-resolution ink-jet and laser printers can print a wide range of fonts and graphics. LaTeX is a software tool that allows users to take substantial advantage of such printing capabilities.
The popularity of word processing has led to the development of many software tools which are based upon what-you-see-is-what-you-get (wysiwyg) techniques. Professional typesetters and compositors evolved a complex set of rules and tricks for mixing fonts and typefaces to present the best look. Most books and documents the public now sees daily incorporate very advanced typesetting techniques. These are very difficult for wysiwyg word processors to incorporate, because, among many reasons, wysiwyg applications typically calculate line breaks and hyphenation as you type, not after all the text for the document has been input.
Ordinary laser printers have resolutions in the hundreds of dots per inch, but display screens are typically limited to less than hundred pixels per inch. LaTeX differs from wysiwyg tools like Microsoft WORD. In LaTeX, the designer of a document specifies their layout requirement in an abstract manner. The program translates these into the necessary details of typeface, font and size, e.g., making use of a set of rules of “style” that have been derived from type-setting experience. The LaTeX user need only specify the logical design of the document, e.g., in terms of chapters, sections, lists, etc. Concern with the physical layout is largely unnecessary.
The effect of this approach is that the document producer controls the appearance of the document indirectly, through a series of encodings which describe to the document processing package what the document should contain. These descriptions take the form of ordinary text files produced with any ordinary text editor; indeed, the whole armory of text-processing utilities may be used to “attack” LaTeX source files, which can lead to useful short cuts.
LaTeX commands may be thought of as a “mark up” language. The input to LaTeX consists of the raw text of a document, interspersed with directives that indicate how each part of a document is to be processed. LaTeX supplies a generous set of structures, as well as the means of adjusting some of their parameters where necessary. Overall, the effect is very like that of compiling a program, in that the ordinary text file source is run through a LaTeX program to produce a result quite different in nature from the input.
The output from LaTeX is not immediately printable. While a number of files of information may be produced, the main output is a device-independent file, usually given the extension “.dvi”. Such files must be processed for display on a screen, or for output to a particular printer. A wide range of conventional programs are available for such translations. For example, open source and commercially marketed software tools are available to transform “.dvi” files into printable output. Programs are available to preview output that approximates the printed page on a workstation screen display. Other conventional programs can be bought to transform “.dvi” file into PostScript for output to a printer.
LaTeX is implemented as a set of macros for TeX, the underlying typesetting engine that does much of the real work. When LaTeX is processing an input source file and encounters an error, it responds with an often cryptic message. Therefore, placing all of LaTex's resources directly in the hands of ordinary users is not reasonably going to result in a satisfactory experience or much productivity.